LHC is back with big energy boost

[hue]

Source: BBC News

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is operating again after its winter break.

Early on Thursday, opposing stable beams of protons were smashed into each other at four observation positions.

The total collision energy in these bunches of sub-atomic particles was eight trillion electron volts - a world record.

Scientists expect the big boost in capability to significantly increase the collider's chances of discovering "new physics".

The great expectation is that they will definitively confirm or deny the existence of the Higgs boson, the elusive particle that would help explain why matter has mass.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17625123

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This is the year the Higgs boson will be found!! (There may actually be more than one.)

[Gore1FL]

1. What do you mean bu more than one?

Are you saying that there are variants of the Higgs Boson, or are you talking about super symmetry particles?

[longship]

6. E.G., the weak and strong force bosons

There are four for the weak force (W and three Z) and eight for the strong force (gluons).

[hue]

7. SUSY theorists predict there are 5 Higgs and each would have its own Superpartner.

Only the lightest Higgs would be found at 125 Gev level. The other 4 Higgs are heavier and harder to find.
The Standard Model predicts only one Higgs.

[longship]

8. That would make the string theorists happy

They may have something goin' on, but I'm skeptical. Seems like all the successes have been in quantum field theory's camp for decades.

Regardless, if the Higgs is discovered, anything beyond that has to be new physics, and that would be ultra cool. For three decades the standard model has stood all experimental challenges. That's going to change at the LHC.

Exciting! Very exciting.

[Yavin4]

2. Do you get the feeling that the rest of the world is moving on without us?

The rest of the world engages in breathtaking discoveries while we have state school boards trying to install creationism as science.

[Bossy Monkey]

3. That train has left the station

Come to think of it, they also have trains, and stations.

[ladywnch]

5. every freakin day! n/t

[Bossy Monkey]

4. So THAT'S why the world ended this morning!

I was wondering...

[scubadude]

9. CERN best hurry, the Higgs Boson may have already been found by the Tevatron at Fermilab in Chicago

and the scientists there are combing through their data to look for more proof.

I think it's terrible that the US has failed to maintain it's dominance in high energy physics, but my guess is that many of the scientists at CERN are American.

Scuba